Birdhouses have long played a part in popular culture and the art is replete with numerous designs thereof. The popularity of birdhouses stems from a desire in the people employing them for interaction with the birds which inhabit their locale. Birdhouse owners, particularly, enjoy the sights and sounds of the birds which are attracted into nesting in the provided birdhouse(s). Therefore, birdhouse owners usually keep the birdhouse(s) within visual and aural distance of their residence. Favorite placings for a birdhouse typically include hanging the birdhouse from a front yard or back yard tree or mounting the birdhouse to a nearby fence post.
Conventional birdhouses are characterized by having a housing and a perch. A typical birdhouse housing includes a back wall, opposed sidewalls, a front wall, a floor and a roof. The front wall typically has an entrance opening therein which is sized and configured to allow a bird to pass through into the interior of the housing.
The perch typically extends from the front wall, below the opening, to act as a landing platform for the bird. Any portion of the birdhouse roof which extends forward of the front wall typically extends less forward than the perch so as to not obstruct the landing of the bird.
Thus, once the bird has landed on the perch and stabilized itself by gripping the perch with the toe(s) of each tarsus, the bird may enter the birdhouse through the entrance opening. Typically, the bird will bring in straw, twigs, or other nesting material into the housing and build a nest therein. Once the nest has been built, the bird will typically lay an egg(s) therein and bring it to hatching, that being the primary reason to build the nest. Afterwards, the bird will typically feed and nurture the chick in the nest built in the birdhouse. The birdhouse, thus, offers a valuable teaching opportunity, long overlooked, to teach young and old alike the nesting and nurturing behavior of birds.
Some conventional birdhouses have a hinged construction for their roofs to allow the roofs to be opened for cleaning the interior of the housing portion. The cleaning of the birdhouse is typically conducted after the birds have left their nest therein. As such, this conventional birdhouse construction is not suited to allow a person to observe the natural activity therein without substantially interfering with it. An attempt to view the natural activity of the birds by simply opening the roof would cause disturbance and alarm to the birds in the birdhouse, and pose a risk of injury to the person attempting the viewing. Thus, while suitable for their intended purpose, these conventional birdhouses have not sufficiently evolved in their design to exploit this teaching opportunity.
A need exists for a birdhouse which, in addition to offering a way to keep birds nearby for aesthetic purposes, has a construction which allows a person to directly witness the birth preparation, birth, and nurturing activities of bird(s) nesting therein without substantially interfering with these natural activities. It would further be beneficial if such a birdhouse could be placed in a location which was both convenient and safe for such viewing. It would additionally be beneficial if the birdhouse could allow selective viewing to further reduce the impact by the observer to the viewed events. It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a birdhouse having the aforementioned characteristics and capable of acting as a teaching tool to teach the reproductive and nesting behavior of birds.